


A Version of Normal

by Dark_Aegis



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Aegis/pseuds/Dark_Aegis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes time to get used to living a normal life. A character-study of Doctor John Watson</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Version of Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to yamx and ponygirl72 for their encouragement, BRing, and urging to ~~go to the darkside~~ ~~commit fandom adultery~~ write in Sherlock fandom. Based on a prompt found here
> 
> WARNING: This fic contains a graphic description of a PTSD "flashback"

****

“A Version of Normal”  
by Gillian Taylor

 

His therapist told him to take things slowly. Don’t rush. It takes time to get used to living a normal life and that’s to be expected.

He’s always been a bit rubbish at patience.

* * *

It’s like moving through a fog - this normal life. His therapist insists it gets better, but he’s certainly not seeing it. He’s just another wounded veteran, limping his way through a mucked up excuse for existence. He gets up, eats something, goes through the motions, visits his therapist, limps home, eats something, and goes to sleep.

He hates it. He hates all of it - from the damned ‘psychosomatic’ pain in his leg to the near-constant ache in his shoulder. If this is normal life, he wants nothing of it.

With a sigh, he moves to the tiny excuse for a table in the halfway house and opens his laptop. His therapist insists that keeping a blog’ll help.

What the hell is he supposed to write about? His ‘normal life?’ Ha.

When the words come, they’re easy to write because they’re the truth.

 _Nothing happens to me._

* * *

His routine is shattered the instant he meets Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly, routine becomes running with Sherlock through the streets of London - psychosomatic limp forgotten. It’s finding body parts in the refrigerator and gaining a flatmate with absolutely no sense of privacy.

It should be utterly frustrating. He should be looking for a way out. He isn’t. Perhaps that makes him as much of a nutter as his therapist thinks he is.

“I’m better,” he announces to Dr. Thompson as he takes a seat across from her.

She gives him one of her driest looks. “Oh?” she asks. Oh. Typical therapist speak, that.

“See? The limp’s gone,” John says, waving at his leg like it’s the world’s greatest revelation.

“Yes,” she replies. Her lips twitch downwards and he finds himself thinking ‘disapproval’. Strangely, his subconscious voice sounds suspiciously like Sherlock’s.

“What?” he asks.

“I see that you’ve been writing more about your new flatmate on your blog,” she replies.

“Yeah,” John says.

Dr Thompson needs to be a bit more careful with her scribbling if she doesn’t want him to notice. ‘Defensive,’ she’s written followed closely by ‘Lovers?’

He sighs. “We’re not a couple,” he insists.

‘Defensive’ gets an underline now. “Why don’t you tell me about him?”

Where can he possibly begin? He could tell her he’s a high functioning sociopath, but somehow he doubts that’ll endear him to her. She could read about him on his blog, but apparently that’s not what she wants. Thinking about him is making John feel a bit edgy. Sherlock’s been alone for over two hours now.

Who knows what sort of mischief he’s got himself into? They’ve not had a case in over a week. Last time he came home to find bullet holes in the wall and his gun out of bullets.

As if on cue, his mobile buzzes. Ignoring his therapist, he withdraws the mobile from his pocket and glances at the text.

 _Have a case. Come to St. Bart’s._

 _SH_

He smiles and starts to put the mobile away before it buzzes again.

 _Now._

 _SH_

“Sorry,” he says. “Got to go.”

“All right, John. See you next week,” she replies. “And, please, write more in your blog.”

He gives her a brief nod and leaves the room. There are still four more visits left in the mandatory ‘welcome back to normal life’ therapy sessions. He doesn’t want to come back, but he knows he will. It’s mandatory, after all, and he always was a good little soldier.

* * *

He’s in the middle of Tesco's when it happens. Something clatters to the ground in a thunder of metal _clanks_ and suddenly, he’s back in Afghanistan. The aisles morph into rocks - _cover_ \- and the other people turn into enemies. He drops what he’s carrying to the ground, the sound of shattering eggs barely registering over the remembered sounds of gunfire.

He runs, finding a good spot in the corner of two strangely cold outcroppings, grasping something hard and metallic in his hands as he crouches near the ground. The sharp edges of the device’s pin - _the tab_ \- cut his palm and he can feel blood causing the device to become slippery. The insurgents - such a quaint name for people so deadly - crowd closer, their voices an unintelligible babble.

“Stay back!” he shouts, but he’s unwilling to part with what’s in his hands. _Tin can_ , some part of him registers, but the rest of him sees it as a bomb. He doesn’t remember what happened. Where are his fellow troops? They should be here. There shouldn’t be so many of the enemy unless...

Oh, god, unless they’re gone. Unless he’s been captured.

Someone steps forward, reaching out a hand and he bats it away with as much force as he can muster.

 _“-police. Call-“_

He’s going to have to fight if he wants out of here. There are too many of them, far too many of them for him to go at it alone. He has a duty, though, to Queen and country. He’s been taught how to react to capture. He knows they’ll eventually manage to break him and his duty is to lie and to lie often. He knows all of this, but secretly, he’s always thought it was better to die than to be captured.

There’s a ruckus of sound and he thinks he can hear mortar fire in the distance. If nothing else, that’s definitely an alarm siren. His fellow soldiers. Maybe they’re all right after all? Maybe they’re coming to save him.

The enemies move back, ushered backwards by someone who should be familiar but isn’t. His mind’s trying to identify them, but can’t, seeing only Afghan rebels.

The sound - god, it’s deafening. He wants to cover his ears, but he can’t drop the bomb. It’s not the right time. They’ve moved back, out of range.

That’s when a voice cuts through the babble and gunfire and screaming. “John,” the voice says - _Sherlock_ , some part of him identifies and his fingers start to relax on the bomb.

Safety underlies that voice, but he can’t let it distract him from the mission. “Keep back,” he snarls.

“John, you’re not in Afghanistan,” Sherlock says. In perfectly recognisable English.

He blinks. He understood that. Everyone else was speaking Pashto and he couldn’t understand it. “I-I’m not?” he asks, blinking when he realises there’s a strange double-image around him. Rocks became chilled cabinets became rocks again. John wants to trust him, but how can he? God, something’s wrong. Something’s terribly, terribly wrong.

“No. You’re not. You’re at Tesco, fetching milk and eggs. Remember?” The slight emphasis on the word triggers something in his mind, a memory, a real memory.

“Sherlock?” he asks, a multitude of questions in that name. What happened? Are you real? Why am I back in Afghanistan?

“Yes,” Sherlock replies. “Some idiot child knocked down a stack of metal tins. It triggered a flashback.”

Flashback. Oh, god. “Did I-?”

“No. No-one was hurt except for you.”

“Oh, thank _God_.” He drops the tin to the floor, cradling his face in his hands. What the hell was that? He was getting better.

Someone drops down beside him; the rustle of fabric and the feel of wool tell him its Sherlock. “I thought I was getting better,” he confesses softly.

There’s a hand on his arm, squeezing tight. “You are,” Sherlock replies.

Is he, really?

* * *

They’re going to lock him up and throw away the key. They should. He’s a danger to everyone around him. He could’ve _killed_ somebody. He moves around the flat, doing his best to ignore the tremor in his newly bandaged hand.

“No, you couldn’t,” Sherlock says, strangely calm after having to rescue his nutter flatmate.

That makes them a pair, doesn’t it? The high-functioning sociopath and the insane war veteran who never left Afghanistan. “I couldn’t, what?” he snaps.

“Kill someone. You were aware of where you were.”

He spins on his heel and faces his friend, disbelief writ across his face. “No, I wasn’t. I was back in Afghanistan. Everyone around me was an enemy.”

“I wasn’t,” Sherlock points out.

He opens his mouth for a moment and closes it again, confused. “Why is that? I never knew you in Afghanistan. You should’ve been another insurgent, like everyone else.”

There’s a quirk of lips as Sherlock replies. “I’m _nothing_ like everyone else.”

He huffs a sigh and is pinned in place by Sherlock’s piercing stare. “John, you were perfectly aware of where you were. Do you know where you ran? You ran to the chilled section at the back of the supermarket. The tin you grabbed? It was full of sardines - hardly strong enough to hurt anyone and far more suitable weapons were just a few steps down from the sardines. You warned the ‘insurgents’ to stay back. It was only when someone moved close to you that you struck out, but then you retreated again. You had no intention of hurting any one because you recognised that you were still in Tesco. You knew you had to wait for me to get there.”

“They’re going to put me into a psychiatric ward,” John states. They should put him away. He’s dangerous. “I’m surprised the police aren’t here now to escort me there.”

“Bollocks,” Sherlock replies. “If anything, you’ll have a few more ‘mandatory’ therapy sessions.”

“I’m not well, Sherlock,” John says.

“Of course you’re not.” Sherlock states this as though it should be obvious as he shifts his lanky frame into the chair.

He should’ve known that he couldn’t expect empty platitudes from Sherlock bloody Holmes. “Thanks, that helps.”

“You’re more of a work in progress.”

He gapes at his friend for a long moment before Sherlock continues, “Most interesting people are.”

* * *

From the Journal of Dr. John Watson, MD:

‘My therapist tells me it takes time to fit back into a normal life. There’ll be good days and bad days and sometimes the bad ones will outweigh the good.

I had a bad day yesterday. A flashback in the middle of Tesco's. Sherlock talked me out of it and took me home. I worried I’d get myself committed to a psychiatric ward, but Sherlock told me the worst I’d suffer is more mandatory therapy sessions.

I am, apparently, a work in progress.

That’s life, isn’t it? A work in progress.

I suppose that’s _my_ version of normal.’

 

 ****

END


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